Be careful what you wish for. Meta lock will just encourage the cheesiest FTOM fits with no counters due to being meta locked.

Meta lock doesn't fix squad stomps and that's the issue. If a squad q's they should have to wait for a squad to q against them.

The playerbase is too small.

I can already see 1 exploit; Low mu bracket for the newer players who can't afford/unlock proto gear. Higher mu bracket for high end players. Top players see noobs occupy lower mu bracket, they farm there and pad stats

I wonder how many people take the time too help out the new blueberries i try to help them by explaining suit roles and giving them a couple of mil in isk while showing them that this is a team based game just not every one going to be a team and when there grinding sp and isk i show them a good makeshift logi out of a basic suit and i help most of the time.

They already do...
They just make a newberry squad leader.
With metalocks at least they will not be sporting proto gear on the new guys. When I watch my friend's games over the last two weeks its a constant farm for guys going 30+kills from Third Rock, Iberica, Groupo, AE, and pretty much all the scrub corps. They are always in proto and always in groups of three plus a random. MK0, CK0, AK0 every game. Its sad. The meta locks would at least help some. The match making is not.

Couple problems with meta lock I can think of. First, the Aurum items have a higher meta level than their equivalent ISK item. I don't know if many people spend money on them but the meta levels would have to all be changed or ccp will simply make less money since people would buy less of them. Or all the ones built up via salvage will simply not be used because it will hinder your ability to maximize your potential within the meta level allowance.

Also I think different meta levels would have to be set for each type of fit. Just from briefly looking at all the apex suits, the Logis and Assaults are all 15-20 meta level higher than the Commandos and Sentinels.

Okay fine, disagree. So that means as things currently are someone who wants to run Aurum items can only run basic gear while people using ISK items get to run advanced gear and they have equal meta level. Sure that makes perfect sense. Or, a Logi can only run basic gear and the Sentinels run advanced gear, with equal meta levels. As things are, both of those would happen or close to it if a meta level cap were implemented.

I am not arguing against a meta level cap, I'm just saying it is a lot more involved to make it work than just picking an arbitrary number and leave everything else the way it is.

Something like that would work, I was thinking more along the lines of picking a number, lets say 40, as the maximum meta level your suit can have with all items combined. I think that is what most people are talking about when it comes to meta cap too.

This is the sort of meta lock that I'm really against. Never underestimate Dust players ability to break the game. I've just made a thread that will hopefully highlight my concerns.

It would be better than the way things are now.

I just did an example in that thread.....

At this point it would have to be a tier-lock not a meta-lock.

Militia contracts: MLT suits and weapons only. Mods are crazy hard to fit on MLT frames even with max skills.

Lore it up with something like:

"Concord has allowed your local station to offer simple garrisons in surrounding systems. As these battles take place in high sec space, equipment will be restricted to minimize property damage and civilian casualties.

As the engagements are of a lesser threat level, the isk you will receive will also be lesser. However, the experiences will serve your combat training as well as any other encounter would. See your station contracts officer for more information."

Newberries can get their sp on without being smeared. (too hard)
Vets can grind out their dailys.
Tryhards still have two modes to tryhard in.
(Q sync in this mode will happen, but will lead to less stomps)

Lower isk payout reflects lower cost of fittings.
No sp change because that hurts newbros.

And maybe tune the salvage (if possible) to more components, fitted fits, broken bits, and std gear. As these are the things plants crave.

My friends quit because they had poor isk management skills ._.

I agree to a point, skills are less detrimental than STD vs PRO. I do believe that passive modifiers are detrimental enough to cause a problem.

I've been wanting to work this out for a while, so this is mostly because I'm interested to see the numbers.

Using an Assault M1 with 2 x Basic Shield Extenders, 2 x Basic Ferroscales, 2x Basic Light Damage Mods and a Combat Rifle the new player that has just unlocked the gear has:
288 Shield HP
271 Armor HP
and does:
24 HP/round damage to Shield
32.8 HP/round damage to Armor

Conversely, the vet with V's in the applicable skills and augmented ammo V has:
335.1 Shield HP
314.5 Armor HP
and does:
25.2 HP/round damage to shield
39.6 HP/round damage to Armor

For the new player to take down the vet they need to land (335.1/24) + (314.5/32.8) =~ 23.5 rounds
For the vet to take down the new player they need to land (288/25.2) + (271/39.6) =~ 18.3 rounds

Even in the exact same suit, a new player going toe to toe with a vet needs to land about 30% more shots to come out on top.

Meta lock is stupid I made a rattati suit with better stats ( one I'd much rather run than my best proto ) at a 28 mu than a full proto suit that had a mu of 68. Mu can be manipulated and meta locked matches would be twisted and become a joke.

When I hear 'Meta Lock' I think of the total meta of the suit + modules. This could be gamed and would put the new players in a worse situation than before.

What I think a lot of us are talking about is a 'Tier Lock'. That is, no use of gear above ADV (maybe even STD) level. This is much less open to exploitation and is my preferred system.